


give the devil his due

by cywscross



Series: Tumblr Prompts 2015 [17]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe, Demon Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Prompt Fill, Steter Week 2.0, Young Peter Hale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 11:06:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4261065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cywscross/pseuds/cywscross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter accidentally summons a demon.  Most people would be terrified.  Peter is not most people, so it’s probably rather fortunate that Stiles is not most demons either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	give the devil his due

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nezstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezstorm/gifts).



> Based off Mar's prompt [here](http://bxdcubes.tumblr.com/post/116380473469/young-peter-hale-and-his-pet-demon-stiles-he).
> 
> \--
> 
> And a heads-up now: I have absolutely no idea where I want to take this fic (like even less of an idea than any of my other fics). I wanted to get something out for Steter Week though, aside from the long-ass one that I'm hoping I can finish by the last day, and I've wanted to do a demon!Stiles fic for a while now so I figure I may as well post the first chapter.

 

“Don’t touch these, Peter,” Talia warns him as she locks away the most recently acquired additions to the Hale library in her office.  “Not until I’ve gone through them and checked that they’re not dangerous.”

When she puts it like that, how can she possibly expect Peter to obey?  He spends more time in their library than the rest of the family combined, and it’s hardly fair for his sister – Alpha though she may be – to keep potentially new knowledge from him, not to mention treating him like a child limited to PG-13 material to boot. He’s twenty-six for god’s sakes.

So – of course – he snoops.  He’s curious but patient, and he waits until the house is empty before picking the lock on Talia’s home office, and then again on the cabinet where the books have been stashed.

To his utter disappointment, most of them aren’t that interesting, nothing he doesn’t either already have in his own private (and secret) collection of books courtesy of the contacts he’s amassed over the years or has already learned from other similar texts.

There is one book though, near the very bottom, an ancient-looking tome with yellowed, crumbling pages that give the impression of being so brittle that they would likely fall apart on a breeze.  The entire thing is bound in ominous grey-black leather, no title or author in sight, and when Peter lifts it out of the drawer, the very air around him seems to go still with hushed anticipation.  The smell of sulfur mixed with something sickeningly sweet hits his nose like the slap of a wet towel, and Peter instantly knows that whatever information this contains is undoubtedly dangerous.

Which only piques his curiosity even more.  He handles it gingerly, flipping it open with careful hands, ready to drop it and jump back just in case cracking it open will trigger a ward or a dormant spell, but-

Nothing.

Nothing happens.  Even worse, the words on the page he’s looking at make no sense to him.  Peter can boast a thorough comprehension in both Latin and Gaelic, which are languages that most old texts are written in, and he even knows a bit of Old English, but he doesn’t recognize the jagged symbols inked into the pages like they were written yesterday instead of thousands of years ago at all.

He brushes fingers over one line, the letters so black that he almost thinks they might smudge under his touch.  He feels almost… chilled when he studies the writing more closely.  And…

For a moment, he almost thinks he can hear a continuous rustle of whispers in his ears, but when he focuses, all he can pick up is the spring breeze outside, the chirping of birds, and the silence of an unoccupied house.

He shakes his head.  The Hale house isn’t often empty; the lack of noise must be getting to him.

He goes back to browsing the tome instead, hoping for a translation or even pictures to give him a clue as to what the book is about, but ultimately, he can’t find anything that might help him understand the language any better than when he first started.

Peter’s increasingly half-hearted perusal of the tome comes to an abrupt end when he accidentally nicks a finger on one edge of a page, slicing open a small cut that has him hissing out a pained curse.  He grimaces when a few drops of crimson wind up dotting the same page, immediately seeping into the parchment, but even a hastily snagged tissue pressed against the area can’t get the blood out anymore, and there’s really nothing else he can do about it.  He’ll just have to hope the blood won’t smell too fresh when Talia gets around to examining the books.

More than a little discouraged, Peter claps it shut and sets it aside with the rest.  He dives back into cabinet, fishing out the last two, but they’re both about vampires, a subject that Peter’s fairly educated in already if he does say so himself, and he even has a copy of one of the two texts in his own library.

It’s with a very dissatisfied sigh that he puts both books back before turning to the stack beside him, intending to stash those away again as well.

He reaches out and-

He goes still.

The tome – the one written in the language that he couldn’t understand, the one that he is one hundred percent certain he placed on the very top of the pile – is gone.

But.  That’s impossible.

Lurching forward, Peter begins rummaging rather frantically through the other books, hoping that maybe it slid under one of the others or that he was careless and slipped it to the side instead of directly on top.

Except he would’ve noticed the former, and he’s never careless so it can’t be the latter.  He checks anyway, three times, and then he looks inside the cabinet just in case he’s been inflicted with a sudden bout of short-term amnesia.

But his search proves futile.  There should be thirteen books in total, and now there are only twelve left, and no matter how meticulously he looks, there’s no mistaking the fact that the old tome has well and truly vanished into thin air.  He can’t even smell that sulfur-sweet scent anymore, and how did he not notice that earlier?

Fantastic.  Talia is going to murder him.

Peter practically turns the office upside down in the hopes that the tome might magically turn up as suddenly as it disappeared, but unfortunately, he isn’t that lucky.  So he chooses the only logical option left to him – he hides all traces of ever being near the books, airing out the office to clear his scent, replacing the (remaining) texts, and locking everything back up before sneaking out of the room again.

He isn’t so stupid as to believe that Talia won’t find out though.  This is only a stalling tactic; once she realizes that one of the books is missing, she’ll be coming after Peter faster than a cat pouncing on a mouse.  Peter’s always been Talia’s number one suspect, whether or not he’s guilty of the perceived crime, and this time, he won’t even be able to defend himself.  No one will believe him if he tells them that the book just disappeared but what else can he do?

Only…

Talia never mentions the lost book.  Peter waits and waits for the hammer to fall, but Talia never says a word, even days later after Peter _knows_ that his sister has gone through the books and placed them into the library because she comes and tells him that he can read them now.  She doesn’t seem vexed like she would be if she’s noticed the missing tome; in fact, it doesn’t seem as if she’s noticed anything wrong at all.

After two weeks, Peter is cautiously optimistic about the entire issue.  He even falls back onto one of his favourite pastimes – messing with his family – and dyes all of Derek’s clothes hot pink because his nephew has been far too reticent and snippy lately.

(He can almost swear he hears someone laughing with him when Derek finds out and screeches with horrified outrage, loud enough for the entire Preserve to hear, but that makes no sense because nobody ever laughs with him; no one appreciates Peter’s sense of humour.)

Maybe Talia didn’t count the books when she got them, and twelve is only one less than thirteen; altogether, it doesn’t look _that_ different at a glance.

He goes to bed that night feeling less anxious than he has been in a while, not that he’d ever admit it.  He isn’t _afraid_ of Talia per se, but she’s still an Alpha, _his_ Alpha, however much Peter resents that fact sometimes, and even though it’s practically a habit by now to circumvent her orders whenever it suits him, and she’s been angry at him plenty of times before, he still isn’t all that keen on being at the receiving end of her wrath yet again.

Talia isn’t one for playing mind games though so it can’t be that she’s making him sweat on purpose.  If she hasn’t confronted him about the missing tome yet, she isn’t going to, and the only reason she isn’t going to would have to be because she hasn’t even noticed its absence.

Peter goes to sleep.  It isn’t as if she would’ve been able to read it anyway if even Peter couldn’t.

And when it comes down to it, one missing book is hardly going to change anything.

 

* * *

 

He’s wrong.

It changes everything.

 

* * *

 

Peter jolts awake to the scent of sulfur-sweetness in the air and the jarring awareness of someone in his den, someone not Pack, someone _watching him_.

He’s out of bed in a heartbeat, fangs dropping, claws unsheathing, all before he rounds on the shadowy corner where the strange smell is strongest.

There’s a figure there, cloaked in a darkness that seems too thick to be natural, especially since even Peter can’t quite make out whoever it is, and he knows for a fact that he can usually see every inch of his room, even on moonless nights with the curtains drawn.

His nostrils flare.  The sickly sweet sulfur smell grows more pungent, and it only takes another moment for him to recognize it.  It’s the same scent that came from that thrice-damned tome, and all at once, his heart abruptly picks up speed as wary realization courses through him, and the knowledge that he is alone with no backup while facing _something_ _from that book_ that makes his wolf feel like prey hits him like a brick sinking into his gut.

His mind races.  The puzzle pieces click into place, and Peter almost slaps himself for not seeing it sooner.

The tome disappeared for a reason.  And… didn’t he _bleed_ on it, however unintentionally?

Peter should’ve known.  Should’ve guessed.  Blood sacrifices often act as keys to cages after all.

And by bleeding on that tome…

_He set something free._

“Who’s there?”  Peter growls through a mouthful of fangs.  No use delaying the inevitable.  Even if he tries to run, throw himself out his window or howl for his Pack, that will most likely just hurry his death along even faster.  Better to get a clearer idea of what the threat is first and hope for an opening.  To attack or escape – Peter isn’t particularly picky at this point.

A chuckle echoes from the dark corner.  It sends a chill down Peter’s back.

“Well that’s not very nice,” A deceptively light voice admonishes.  “After you went out of your way to free me, you’d think I’d get a warmer welcome.”

Peter catches a glimpse of movement.  He still smells nothing aside from that sweet and sulfur scent.

“Or, well,” The voice hums with unspoken amusement.  “Maybe not _that_ far out of your way.”

And finally, the shadows part to let the moonlight pierce through, and out of the darkness steps-

A boy, dressed in jeans and a ridiculous plaid shirt.  Or at least it _looks_ like a boy, or more accurately a man not much younger than Peter with pale mole-dotted skin, brown hair that looks like he just stepped out of a particularly windy day, and amber eyes that gleam almost like a wolf’s, set in a pretty face that seems entirely too harmless.

Because in that same glittering gaze, there resides an unmistakeable foreign weight, one that catches and holds Peter’s own eyes with a heaviness that speaks of _age_ and _power_ and _eternity_ , and it freezes Peter in place.  With fear or something else – he actually isn’t entirely sure.

“Why so tense, pup?”  The boy croons, sauntering forward on barefooted steps that make no sound.  “You freed me, however accidentally.”  A sardonic smirk twists his lips.  “I’m _grateful_ to you.”

Peter bristles but – for once – he doesn’t dare snipe back something offensive.  He studies the figure carefully, watching as the boy comes to a stop in a shaft of moonlight that only serves to throw a shadow against the far wall.

A shadow that isn’t human whatsoever.  It looms high and menacing, with dark outlines that look like wings stretching the length of the room and beyond.

“Does gratitude come with a side of death?”  Peter enquires tersely, and then he immediately wonders if even that’s mouthy enough to get him killed.

But, to his guarded surprise, the boy’s smirk just widens into a grin.  Peter swears he catches a glimpse of fangs.

“Depends on the circumstances,” The boy replies airily, prowling forward another few steps.

Peter refuses to back away.  “And what are the circumstances right now?”

The boy rocks back on his heels.  His eyes don’t waver from Peter’s.

“You freed me from the grimoire,” He repeats almost condescendingly now, and for a split second, something terrifyingly close to rage flits across his face, but not – Peter cautiously thinks – directed at Peter.  “A drop of blood from a born Beta wolf to free the captured _demon_.”

 _Demon_.  Well damn.  It really can’t get much worse than that, can it?

“And now,” The boy – the _demon_ – grins again, mostly mischievous with a dash of nasty.  “I’m bound to you, Peter Hale.”

Peter blinks.  “… _What?_ ”

The demon snickers before sweeping into a bow that’s at least eighty percent mockery.  “We are bound now, you and I.  That doesn’t mean I take orders, mortal, but-” He bats his eyes innocently.  “-I won’t hurt you either.  Promise.”

Peter twitches.  He can’t smell a lie though, can’t smell much of anything really since even that sulfur-sweet scent is fading now, and the demon – unnervingly enough – doesn’t have a heartbeat.

“What does being bound entail then?”  Peter asks, mind mulling this new development over.

“Nothing much,” The demon announces, wholly unhelpful.  “I’m just going to be following you around.”

“Following me around?”  Peter parrots.

(Peter remembers laughter after Derek flipped his shit over his new pink clothes.  Now he knows it wasn’t a figment of his imagination.  The demon was _already_ following him around.)

“Yup,” The demon smirks happily.  He hops once, and suddenly, he’s sitting in the air instead, legs crossed.

Peter stares for a moment longer before his claws and fangs recede.  He’s still wary but the demon hasn’t attacked in all this time, hasn’t even attacked the past two weeks, and if they’re really _bound_ …

“You said you _won’t_ hurt me,” Peter recalls, eyes narrowing.  “Does that mean you _can_?”

Amber eyes flash like they’re reflecting sunlight.  A smile tips the corners of the demon’s lips.

“I think I like you already, Peter Hale,” The demon decides.  He leans forward, elbows against thighs.  His smile stretches.  “You may call me Stiles.  I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

It sounds like a threat.

Especially since the demon – _Stiles_ – never actually answered Peter’s question.

Well, at least Peter isn’t dead yet.  That has to count for something.

Now he just has to figure out how to exorcise demons, preferably without dragging himself into Hell in the process.

 

**Author's Note:**

> **Please leave a review on your way out.**


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